Marked for Patrick Greil
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market25 Jan 2027
Altach say no — this time
The offer from Hertha Wels for Dejan Stojanović was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market25 Jan 2027
Lukas Jäger hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Altach can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Krasnodar keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Tempers go at Altach
Mike-Steven Bähre was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Altach training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yann Massombo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad25 Jan 2027
14 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Transfer targets25 Jan 2027
A loan enquiry to Cremonese: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match12 Dec 2026
3 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Moritz Oswald will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Altach escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
A defender's goal wins it for Altach — 7.96
1 for Moritz Oswald, marked 7.96, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Match12 Dec 2026
The wait goes on for Altach
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Altach training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Piet Scobel is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad14 Dec 2026
13 goals and a season average of 7.21. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Dejan Stojanović, and the manager let it.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.21, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Rassa Rahmani and Altach agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.18, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
No sign of nerves from Jasper Hartog at 20 — 7.77
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jasper Hartog did not need any: 7.77, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Piet Scobel falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Patrick Greil
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
A mark of 7.78, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Tempers go at Altach
Alberto Delgado was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match28 Nov 2026
It needed Ousmane Diawara to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Hartberg, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Altach this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Piet Scobel falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match21 Nov 2026
0‑1 to Austria Wien, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Anteo Fetahu gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Martin Ilsanker to a room that had heard them before.
Looking ahead23 Nov 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Hartberg in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Alexander Gorgon has written the date down.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Sep 2026
Patrick Knoflach damages knee ligaments — 61 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 61 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Altach
Akaki Gogia was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Piet Scobel falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad28 Sep 2026
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Marked 7.94. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Match26 Sep 2026
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 1‑1 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad10 Aug 2026
118 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Altach lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
A brace, and Ousmane Diawara takes the afternoon — 8.61
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Ousmane Diawara provided it, and the 8.61 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market10 Aug 2026
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Wolfsberger AC waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Altach is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market10 Aug 2026
Altach say no — this time
The offer from LASK for Vesel Demaku was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The deal with Nürnberg is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Altach this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market10 Aug 2026
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Market10 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Erkin Yalcin again, and this time the name on the line is Hartberg. Altach are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Patrick Greil commits to Altach for another 4 years.